I can see the obvious benefit of caching files on a local proxy that will be requested by multiple remote users. I'm unclear if this buys anything for a single remote user. Was the intent to simply serve files locally whenever possible or does the cache proxy streamline things in other ways that make it worth setting up for a single remote person
If the answer is no, should we in fact avoid setting it up for a single user Will it strictly add overhead
Proxy Server for Single Remote User?
siavoshkc
You are correct our system is already optimized for low bandwidth high latency networks so it is fast by default for them.
thanks, mario
Flavia Lemes
While it does add a little overhead it is not noticeable. I have a TFS proxy configured for just myself and I find it speeds up some things massively - for example when I need to do a completely clean get into a different workspace etc.
While these things don't happen too often in day-to-day development it is handy to have. As a TFS proxy is easy to set up and doesn't need much TLC it is probably worth you giving it a go and seeing what you think.
BTW - I'm currently writing a little service to sit on my TFS Proxy server to subscribe to TFS Check-in notifications and then pre-cache the file versions on the remote proxy. That way, when I do a get latests in a morning all the changes will be local for me already. If you want to keep an eye on my blog, I'll post when I've got it working.
Cheers,
M.
Ronan Jordan
So, multiple workspaces aside, the cache proxy would only add value for a single remote user if we implement an additional measure like Martin's pre-fetch service or the scheduled approach you described Without something increasing the cache-hit probability, the proxy alone offers no optimized file transfers or anything of the like, correct
This is more a matter of curiosity at this point. I'd like to understand it better and to be able to explain it better to the remote user who will be doing much of the setup. Thanks in advance!
Bob Emerson
zhihao
Hi Nick:
As Martin pointed out the Proxy is really helpful for offices (even if that includes one person) that have a slow WAN connection to the TFS Server. It decreases download time significantly and hence it allows for greater productivity.
What Martin is writing is a tool that increases the chance of a cache hit, which is what makes the proxy successful. In your case this is the most important part of the equation, so it is in your best interest to have the proxy get the file before you. If that does not happen you will almost always be hitting a cache miss, which decreases the value of the proxy because you won’t be saving that download speed time.
A quick way to do what is described above is to have an NT scheduled job that performs a get of the appropriate mappings every 30 minutes (or configurable to your liking, maybe once a night ). With the files cached in the proxy getting them to your local through the LAN becomes really fast.
If you have further questions or want to learn more about the proxy you can visit the following links:
Webcast: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx EventID=1032291119&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US
Screencasts:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/ LinkId=62788
thanks,
mario